Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the
king,
“Satan reigns on the Clyde alway,
And the taint in the blood of the witch
doth cling
To the child that she brought to
day.
“Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim
land
With a bride that appals the sight;
Like his dam she hath moles on her dread
right hand,
And she turns to a snake at night.
“It is plain that a Scot who can blindly
dote
On the face of an Eastern ghoul,
And a ghoul who was worth not a silver
groat,
Is a Scot who has lost his soul.
“It were wise to have done with
this demon tree
Which has teemed with such caukered
fruit;
Add the soil where it stands to my holy
See,
And consign to the flames its root.”
“Holy man!” quoth King James, and
he laughed, “we know
That thy tongue never wags in vain,
But the Church cist is full, and the king’s
is low,
And the Clyde is a fair domain.
“Yet a knight that’s bewitched by
a laidly fere
Needs not much to dissolve the spell;
We will summon the bride and the bridegroom
here
Be at hand with thy book and bell.”
Lord Ronald stood up in King James’s
court,
And his dame by his dauntless side;
The barons who came in the hopes of sport
Shook with fright when they saw
the bride.
The bishop, though armed with his bell
and book,
Grew as white as if turned to stone;
It was only our king who could face that
look,
But he spoke with a trembling tone.
“Lord Ronald, the knights of thy race
and mine
Should have mates in their own degree;
What parentage, say, hath that bride of
thine
Who hath come from the far countree?
“And what was her dowry in gold or land,
Or what was the charm, I pray,
That a comely young gallant should woo
the hand
Of the ladye we see to-day?”
And the lords would have laughed, but
that awful dame
Struck them dumb with her thunder-frown:
“Saucy king, did I utter my father’s
name,
Thou wouldst kneel as his liegeman
down.
“Though I brought to Lord Ronald nor lands
nor gold,
Nor the bloom of a fading cheek;
Yet, were I a widow, both young and old
Would my hand and my dowry seek.
“For the wish that he covets the most
below,
And would hide from the saints above,
Which he dares not to pray for in weal
or woe,
Is the dowry I bring my love.
“Let every man look in his heart and see
What the wish he most lusts to win,
And then let him fasten his eyes on me
While he thinks of his darling sin.”
And every man—bishop, and lord,
and king
Thought of what he most wished to
win,
And, fixing his eye on that grewsome thing,
He beheld his own darling sin.
